


A Star and a Shield

by bittenfeld



Category: CHiPs
Genre: Death, Gen, Police Assassination, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sniper - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 04:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3796672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittenfeld/pseuds/bittenfeld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a one-page beginning of a story.  Baricza is suffering from post-traumatic stress after a rookie trainee assigned to him is murdered on their very first day together out on the streets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Star and a Shield

From behind the steering wheel of his patrol car, Officer Barry Baricza stared mesmerized at the little county intersection. It was empty now. Two o-clock in the morning, and not a car in sight. The street crews had come in and cleaned up the wreckage, swept away the broken glass, and swabbed off the blood. Six weeks past, and no sign that it had ever happened.

Damn, it should never have happened anyway. The boy hadn't deserved to die. Brand new rookie, fresh from the Academy, with his shiny new badge, and a .38 at his hip, and a copy of the Vehicle Code under his arm – killed on his first day out on the street, on his very first call.

Baricza had been assigned as his field training officer. They had responded to a multiple-vehicle traffic collision: multiple injuries with wreckage strewn from here to hell. A sobering call for any cop – and particularly first day out on the street – but certainly not a dangerous one for the responders. And Officer Greene had gotten right to work with all the usual self-assurance and confidence that rookie cops fresh from the Academy always exhibit before they discover the realities of the world. But that was all right, he would have learned. This call might have taken them an hour to complete, maybe a little more, and then they’d have been rolling again.

They never saw the sniper. Later on, witnesses would come forth to describe a passing blue sedan with three passengers and a pistol barrel stuck out the back window, which had fired upon the accident scene as the vehicle sped by. But at the time, Officers Baricza and Greene were too busy to notice while they treated the victims and took notes, and awaited the arrival of the ambulance and tow-truck. And all Baricza remembered was hearing two quick pops like firecrackers, and then he was down on the asphalt with searing pain in his neck and chest; and Jonny Greene was crumpled beside him, half his head blown away.

Dammit, it just wasn’t supposed to happen that way at all. It was like those crazy Hollywood war movies, where the new kid on the squad, first time out in the action, who carried his girlfriend’s locket as a lucky charm, was invariably the first one blown to kingdom come. It was so predictable, you could bet your six-pack of Coors on it.

Only this wasn’t Hollywood, and Greene probably didn’t carry his girlfriend’s locket with him. Just his shiny new badge, and a .38 at his hip, and a copy of the Vehicle Code under his arm.

A sickness trembled in Baricza’s gut, and the throbbing had started up again in his neck and shoulder. The bandage chafed beneath his uniform collar. Maybe he should call it a night for tonight, and just go back to Central and finish the mound of reports and affidavits that still awaited his attention. After four weeks off on medical leave to recuperate, and eleven days back at the office to sit at a desk and play with paperwork, he’d begged the watch commander for a cruiser again, and the sergeant had relented on the condition that he come back in if it got to be too much for him. Baricza had agreed, silently determining to stay out at least half the shift. But after two-and-a-half hours stopping speeders and drunks, he was ready to pack it in and get off the road. Funny, he didn’t remember that chasing speeders and drunks was so exhausting.

He reached for the mike, and thumbed the button. “LA-15, 7-Adam. Requesting 10-19.”

The radio crackled – it was a bad transmission, and he was almost out of range – then the dispatcher came through: “7-Adam. 10-19.”

“10-4, LA,” he responded, and hung the mike back.

. . . . .


End file.
